As Julia stepped off the arm of the chair, she saw the open window. A
thought crossed her mind before the noose tightened. Belle could have
jumped out of the window when I passed out. _Julia, you're a realist!_
* * * * *
Mrs. Shultz put down the pot of soup and opened the door.
The apartment is called a single. It consists of a Murphy bed, a
chest of drawers, an overstuffed chair, a sofa, a coffee table, a
seventeen-inch television set, a bookcase partially filled with the
volumes A through F of an encyclopedia from the supermarket, and
assorted paperback books, and a radio that doesn't work. In the ceiling
is a fixture with two twenty-five-watt bulbs. From the fixture hangs
a twisted sheet with a hangman's knot in the end of it. The noose is
quite empty. So is the apartment.